3 ms·

Is it "stealing data" to record that certain options in my program are never used, or used frequently, or whenever a user clicks on options A,B and C in sequenc

Is it "stealing data" to record that certain options in my program are never used, or used frequently, or whenever a user clicks on options A,B and C in sequence the app crashes? My problem is that I believe that 90% of the users of my app won't care one way or the other if I record these stats. If I default opt-out these people, then I lose all that useful data and in the process, I believe, make my app worse for everyone. I won't deny this is not an obvious choice, but I think personally on balance it's better to opt-in. Especially when the data is anonymised and doesn't contain any private/identifying information. But I understand how others would disagree. If there was some kind of OS-wide "don't record what I do" option I could hook into, I would use it.

lorenzfx 10y ago
How about choosing no default, and instead ask the user on first run? `Do you want to send usage data to the developer? (yes/no)`
- CJefferson 10y ago
  I imagine it would get REALLY annoying if every command line program started doing that, every time you logged into a new machine. Of course, that suggests we should introduce some kind of standard, then bash (or whatever shell you use) could prompt you once, and every other program could use that setting.
  - jeena 10y ago
    At least this would make the problem with how many commandline tools are tracking you visible, and perhaps would start a discussion on the necessity of tracking for tools like brew, ls, cp, dd and so on.
Nursie 10y ago
Your belief may not match the real world. You can only know that by actually asking them. Look at the outcry when Microsoft put this stuff in Win 10. At the very least you should present a question on install. Hiding a notice amongst licenses and other information, as often happens, is underhanded and scammy.
hueving 10y ago
>My problem is that I believe that 90% of the users of my app won't care one way or the other if I record these stats. If I default opt-out these people, then I lose all that useful data and in the process, I believe, make my app worse for everyone. If those people wouldn't volunteer to opt-in, it's just as likely that the reason they are not opting-out is because they missed the notification that someone is collecting data about them. It's a UX anti-pattern to default behavior to something the users may not want. If you're worried they'll accept whatever default there is, just explicitly ask them if they want to relay usage stats and you'll be surprised how much of the 90% you claim don't care will start caring. Look at the comments on this thread, there are multiple accounts of people surprised by this. The very fact that this article is on the front page is proof that Brew tricked users. >Especially when the data is anonymised and doesn't contain any private/identifying information. You've either made massive breakthroughs in the field of information security or this is a bogus statement. If the user's computer even connects to an analytics service, they've already got an IP address, frequency of connections from that IP, etc and all of the correlation that comes with enabled by their other data sets. Just because it's anonymized by the time it comes out of Google in Brew usage reports doesn't mean it hasn't given Google additional information to profile people.
stan_rogers 10y ago
You should, perhaps, question your beliefs. When I get "do you want to send...", I only very rarely click "yes/OK", and then only if that and the OS were the only things running and the problem is locally reproducible. The state of my machine is none of your damned business.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  You could be right. I could pop up a message early on, saying I'm doing analytics. I think, based on the conversation here, I'm going to make it very clear there is analytics, but not allow turning them off. This is (I think, you are welcome to disagree of course) the best situation: * Everyone knows there is analytics going on, no hiding. * I get good quality analytics from my actual users, as no-one can opt out (well, you could start port blocking, I'm not going to make the program stop working in that situation).

lorenzfx 10y ago

How about choosing no default, and instead ask the user on first run? `Do you want to send usage data to the developer? (yes/no)`

CJefferson 10y ago
I imagine it would get REALLY annoying if every command line program started doing that, every time you logged into a new machine. Of course, that suggests we should introduce some kind of standard, then bash (or whatever shell you use) could prompt you once, and every other program could use that setting.
- jeena 10y ago
  At least this would make the problem with how many commandline tools are tracking you visible, and perhaps would start a discussion on the necessity of tracking for tools like brew, ls, cp, dd and so on.

Nursie 10y ago

Your belief may not match the real world. You can only know that by actually asking them. Look at the outcry when Microsoft put this stuff in Win 10. At the very least you should present a question on install. Hiding a notice amongst licenses and other information, as often happens, is underhanded and scammy.

hueving 10y ago

>My problem is that I believe that 90% of the users of my app won't care one way or the other if I record these stats. If I default opt-out these people, then I lose all that useful data and in the process, I believe, make my app worse for everyone. If those people wouldn't volunteer to opt-in, it's just as likely that the reason they are not opting-out is because they missed the notification that someone is collecting data about them. It's a UX anti-pattern to default behavior to something the users may not want. If you're worried they'll accept whatever default there is, just explicitly ask them if they want to relay usage stats and you'll be surprised how much of the 90% you claim don't care will start caring. Look at the comments on this thread, there are multiple accounts of people surprised by this. The very fact that this article is on the front page is proof that Brew tricked users. >Especially when the data is anonymised and doesn't contain any private/identifying information. You've either made massive breakthroughs in the field of information security or this is a bogus statement. If the user's computer even connects to an analytics service, they've already got an IP address, frequency of connections from that IP, etc and all of the correlation that comes with enabled by their other data sets. Just because it's anonymized by the time it comes out of Google in Brew usage reports doesn't mean it hasn't given Google additional information to profile people.

stan_rogers 10y ago

You should, perhaps, question your beliefs. When I get "do you want to send...", I only very rarely click "yes/OK", and then only if that and the OS were the only things running and the problem is locally reproducible. The state of my machine is none of your damned business.

CJefferson 10y ago
You could be right. I could pop up a message early on, saying I'm doing analytics. I think, based on the conversation here, I'm going to make it very clear there is analytics, but not allow turning them off. This is (I think, you are welcome to disagree of course) the best situation: * Everyone knows there is analytics going on, no hiding. * I get good quality analytics from my actual users, as no-one can opt out (well, you could start port blocking, I'm not going to make the program stop working in that situation).